Death in the afternoon

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', 'This is my message to you'

Mexico City, and a crowd of up to 48,000 have come to see the Matadors fight a half-ton bull named Pajarito or Little Bird. The crowd relish the tang of danger and death in the hot midday air. What indeed could be more thrilling than facing down a fighting bull and proving your mettle? Were not the matadors on the scorching sand the lucky ones.

Pajarito was obviously in a mood to share the glory - leaping across a safety barrier over the heads of journalists and into the most expensive seats at the capital's vast ring (video here). Two people were hospitalised, one woman spectator received a six-inch (15-cm) gash in her chest.

The rampage ended when a fight steward, Felipe Vadillo, killed the animal trapped between rows of seats with his sword.

A bitter pill

Four pharmacists in Edwardsville, Illinois who refused to sign a pledge promising to dispense the morning-after birth-control pill sued Walgreen drug stores Friday, alleging they were illegally fired. They are represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, a public-interest group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson.

A new state rule requires pharmacies that sell federally approved contraceptives to fill prescriptions for emergency birth control "without delay" if they have the medication in stock. The rule is being challenged in federal court.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg", fumed Robertson. "There are pharmacists today dispensing drugs like Herceptin to prevent so-called breast cancer. Breast cancer is God's punishment for harlots. Dispensing this drug means that you hate God."

Robertson has also set his sights on hairdressers "The book of Judges clearly shows us through Samson's example that cutting hair is against God's will. We're planning a series of pipe bomb attacks on stylists".

"It's time that anybody who hears a voice telling them not to do their job properly is protected by federal law. Unless they're a filthy fucking stinking a-rab. Or a kike. They can go to hell."

Students vote for Porn On Campus TV

LA JOLLA, California. -- University of California, San Diego (UCSD) students voted in a special election Friday to determine whether pornography can be aired on the student television station, SRTV.

The show, Koala TV, showed graphic sex and nudity which was banned by the UCSD student council.

"It was offensive because it was explicit porno, it showed every kind of sexual act I could think of," student council member Denis Shmidt said.

That evening Schmidt's girlfriend Lisbet "Lizzie" Gilchrist, confided in friends how accurate the statement had been. Over her fourth Margarita Gilchrist expressed frustration at her boyfriends "two moves" and lack of finesse at both. "You know the other day I suggested he might like to spank me and call me a dirty, bad girl. The look on his face, I may as well have suggested inviting another guy in to piss on us whilst I fingered his ass"

The unforgettable twat

Tedious warbler Bono has launched a new brand, Product Red, with a share of profits to go to the fight against Aids in Africa.

Launch partners include American Express, Gap, Converse and Giorgio Armani. These titans of creative thinking have got right outside the box and come up with a range of products that will include T-shirts, footwear, sunglasses and a credit card. Coloured red. Presumably this taps into the market segment identified as "That multi-millionaire tax exile guy's cool. He's down isn't he? He's always talking about stuff. Can I look like a sanctimonious prick too?"

He stressed that this was a commercial venture and not philanthropy.

"Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands. Red is more like punk rock, hip hop" Bono said. Sources remain unclear as to whether he then struck a street b-boy pose with one hand on his chin, before rushing off to meet the pope.

Unaccustomed, as I am

According to Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley having sex is good way to calm nerves before giving a speech or presentation. Mr Brody says it has to be full sexual intercourse to get the best results. Mr Brody made particular mention of that fact to his undergraduate students Kelly and Lyndsey.

He discovered volunteers who had sexual intercourse were least stressed and had blood pressure levels that returned to normal more quickly than people who engaged in other types of sex.

But people who had abstained from sex had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

"The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm but rather, endure for at least a week," he told New Scientist magazine.

But Dr Peter Bull, a social and political psychologist at the University of York, said there were other techniques more likely to reduce stress. "You are probably better off thinking about what you are going to say, and preparing thoroughly, rather than having sex the previous night."

And I certainly wouldn't recommend it before you make a speech announcing that you are about to run for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats.

Think of the children! pt 2

A group of parents in Johnson County, Kansas believe their children are required to read profane and sexually explicit books, reports KMBC's Martin Augustine.

A group of concerned citizens and parents made their case on Monday to the Blue Valley School Board. The group's Web site lays out its concerns that there is too much sex, violence and vulgarity on Blue Valley School reading lists. The group has called some of the books pornographic.

"But must we wallow in the sewer to recognize filth?" asked parent Sherry Millen. Millen wants the Blue Valley School Board to remove the novels "The Lords of Discipline" and "Boy's Life" from class reading lists because of the language and sexual references.

"Far less than this has been successfully prosecuted as sexual harassment in the workplace," Millen said, having difficulty differentiating between, for example, reading about a man being crucified and actually crucifying a man in your workplace, with nails.

In arguing for the removal of "Song of Solomon" from the reading lists, Lisa Friedrichsen also objected to the language and sexual tone of the book as being too much for high school students to handle. "Why would I subject my kids to this sexual harassment, knowing that the same content has been described in Blue Valley official rationales as 'poetic language and advanced dialogue," Friedrichsen said.

On their website the group outline oposition to homosexual sex, anal sex, rape, and incest as well as heterosexual sex and oral sex, contesting that "it's undeniable that descriptions of sexually explicit scenes helps develop an appetite for more of the same. Unfortunately, that appetite easily and logically leads to pornography and sexual experimentation. (Anyone watching the news knows that students are engaging in oral sex at a greater rate than ever before.)"

"At 18, they can have a couple years to figure out the horrid situations of life. We don't have to bring all that upon them before they get out of high school," school board member Dan French said.

It's an interesting way to educate your child certainly. Tell them that the world is made of kittens and rainbows, and yes dear, there isn't any such thing as literature just The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And then on their eighteenth birthday you have the difficult chat about "the horrid situations of life" like sex, horrid dirty sex.

This year we'll be vacationing in Kansas, I just can't get enough of those cute innocent corn-fed Kansas highschool girls, and as my concerned parent friends tell me students are engaging in oral sex at a greater rate than ever before.

I am not a criminal

A military jury on Monday ordered a reprimand but no jail time for an Army interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. also was ordered to forfeit $6,000 salary and was largely restricted to his barracks and workplace for 60 days. This certainly sends a message out to any potential insurgents, or indeed previously non-political foreign-types about the nature of justice and fair-play, and exactly how much their life is worth.

After hearing the sentence reached by the jury of six Army officers, Welshofer hugged his wife. Soldiers in the gallery broke into applause.

Prosecutors said Welshofer put a sleeping bag over the head of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, sat on his chest and used his hand to cover the general's mouth while questioning him at a detention camp in Iraq in 2003. Prosecutors said the general suffocated.

Welshofer was obviously at the vanguard of a whole new interrorgation technique whereby you cover someone's mouth and then angrily ask them questions. I think he used to be my dentist.

Spinner said he was gratified by Monday's verdict but said his client should never have been charged. "When you send our men and women over there to fight, and to put their lives on the line, you've got to back them up, you've got to give them clear rules, and you've got to give them enough room to make mistakes without treating them like criminals," he said.

His wife, Barbara she said she was proud of him for contesting the case. "I love him more for fighting this," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "He's always said that you need to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing is the hardest thing to do."

Perhaps it's sometimes so hard to the right thing that it takes the skin off your knuckles, and you need help from a colleague with a rubber hose.

Won't somebody think of the children?

Catholic group Opus Dei has called for the film version of The Da Vinci Code novel to be given an adult rating. The organisation says children should be protected from what it calls "insidious" lies. Spokesman Marc Carroggio said: "Any adult can distinguish reality from fiction. But you cannot expect a child to make proper judgements."

Well quite. We all look forward to hearing Marc's plans to decommission all Catholic Sunday Schools, choir practices and the wide range of activities traditionally used to ensnare defenceless minds incapable of proper judgement. It's only fair after all to allow somebody to become a fully formed adult before using the twin attack of guilt and self-hatred to recruit them. But as the Jesuits said, it really works best on the child.

Mr Carroggio added: "Merely adding a disclaimer that says 'fiction' is not enough." "Although the story is absurd and at times somewhat humorous, it produces a hateful image of the institution and it is well known that hateful images like this produce feelings of hatred in those who lack a critical sense."

Carrogio's right about one thing, the story is absurd. Absurdly written that is. To be honest I don't really care what the church thinks about it, it's a little disingenuous for them to bleat on about one book full of stories being more true than the next.

Of course there's a place for light reading in the world, relaxing entertainment that doesn't ask so much of you at the end of a hard day. But really. Not since a class of schoolkids, inspired by the heady works of Jack Higgins and Sven Hassell one English lesson produced a series of essays bold in conceit and daring in grammer has so much bad prose been aired.

It took about 4 seconds with google to find these excerpts - click on them for more if you're bewitched by the poetic writing.

The man was now taking dead aim at Saunière's head.
Saunière closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tempest of fear and regret.
The click of an empty chamber echoed through the corridor.
The curator's eyes flew open.
The man glanced down at his weapon, looking almost amused. He reached for a second clip, but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Saunière's gut. "My work here is done."
The curator looked down and saw the bullet hole in his white linen shirt. It was framed by a small circle of blood a few inches below his breastbone. My stomach. Almost cruelly, the bullet had missed his heart.

Or this...

Robert Langdon awoke slowly.

A telephone was ringing in the darkness—a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed.

Where the hell am I?

The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram:

HOTEL RITZ PARIS.

Slowly, the fog began to lift.

So the next time some over-excited fool starts bleating about how "rilly, rilly amazing the books are" be my guest and laugh in their faces until you vomit a pelvis. In the words of my good friend Marc Carroggio: "you cannot expect a child to make proper judgements...images like this produce feelings of hatred in those who lack a critical sense."

Jack's gonna go down inside

Is there anything more annoying than an actor? Of course, one with a social conciense. In the darkest hours after hurricane Katrina fun was available to those watching Sean Penn's earnest mercy dash to help those affected. Not quite so earnest that he didn't take a film crew to capture his largesse obviously.

If you're gonna make a political point then at least take the piss. A lesson George Clooney didn't ignore when taking a swipe at disgraced US lobbyist Jack Abramoff during his Golden Globes speech. Clooney said on Monday: "Who would name their kid 'Jack' with 'off' at the end? No wonder the guy's screwed up."

Entertainment trade paper Variety said it received an open letter from Frank Abramoff, Jack's father saying Clooney's words were "deeply hurtful".

Frank doesn't confirm whether those words were more or less hurtful than the time Jack defrauded an estimated $66 million out of Native American tribes, clients he described as "monkeys," "troglodytes," and "idiots" But parents can be very forgiving can't they?

According to Variety, Frank Abramoff wrote to Clooney: "Your glib and ridiculous attack on my son, Jack, coupled with your obscene query as to the choice his mother and I made in naming him brought shame and dishonour on you and your profession. "What drove you to this lapse in lucidity, I can never know, but you need to know that your words were deeply hurtful to many innocent and decent people."

George may bring shame to his profession, but then again Jack's CV contains coups like his work to secure a visa for the great Zairian kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko. Perhaps he's prouder of his leadership of a 1980s think tank financed, unbeknownst to him apparently, by the intelligence arm of South Africa's apartheid regime? Actually speaking of innocent and decent people he may be most pleased with his work to secure federal immigration and labor law waivers for the Saipan garment industry in 1997.

Frank went on to say in the letter that the lobbyist's daughter, who was watching the show, was in "a fit of tears". Good.

Time was that when your venal greedy bastard got caught out, he at least had a little fucking dignity, no dammit, brazen arrogance. Is there anything worse than these fuckers getting caught and then whining about it? Grow a fucking backbone you piece of shit, you'll need it when you get to Lompoc Penitentiary, a lot of those well-built chicano motherfuckers have got family who work in the garment industry, plenty of displaced Chippewa indians inside too. Maybe a brother from Inglewood will disagree with your arpartheid-funded film work.

Pretty soon a few comments from a matinee idol are going to be the least of your concerns Jack.

Wayne Carr on the radio

Superstar DJ Pete Tong says there are 18-year-olds who have never seen vinyl. Pete says digital technology is now so dominant records are completely extinct in some young people's lives.

"I played a seven-inch vinyl set recently and discovered there are 18-year-olds who have never seen vinyl," he says in an interview in this month's Wired magazine.

Of course Pete, there is another interpretation of that statement... The people who come out to hear you play are complete fucking morons.

It may take a more intellectual disc jockey to get to the bottom of this cultural question - Jo Whiley, get your scary big terrahawk face up in here we need your incisive questioning now more than ever.

Trends

Trevor Creed, senior vice president of design at the Chrysler Group was unconvincing yesterday denying that the styling of the new "classic mopar" Challenger was inspired by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. He insisted the retro design was nothing to do with news concerning the "A-listers" family arrangements.

Jolie, 30, adopted four-year-old Maddox from Cambodia and Zahara, one, from Ethiopia. Pitt was named "the adoptive father-to-be" in court papers.

Last week Pitt's publicist confirmed that Jolie is pregnant with the couple's first biological child.

"It's obvious, do I have to spell it out" pleaded self-proclaimed Hollywood insider Joey Streebaum. "For some time now Angelina's been depending on Asian imports. Sure they're compact and cute, but when you're looking for a true-blue stars and stripes product there's no alternative. Go to the american working man for muscle."

Automotive commentators remained tight-lipped about whether the latest product will gradually gain weight and lose performance, becoming draped with gaudy tacked-on decoration and suffering from a distinct lack of identity like most celebrity children.

Don't let the morons grind you down

In what must be the most incongruos coincidence of legal proceedings for quite some time, Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is currently on trial at the Old Bailey, denying 15 charges that include inciting racial hatred.



Meanwhilst at Leeds Crown Court, BNP leader Nick Griffin, and protege Mark Collett, 24, face a series of race hate charges.

The obvious fact is that these demented morons are more alike than they'd ever recognise never mind admit. Filled with a heady mix of ideological cant and zealous victimhood it's always somebodys fault, whether it be the jews or the asians, zionists running the world or paki's taking our jobs. Edit the inflammatory rhetoric and see if you can guess who said what.



Wouldn't it just be too good if they were found guilty and all ended up sharing a cell. The pilot writes itself...

Exterior shot: Milton Keynes prison.
Voiceover: Nick "Fletch" Griffin, you are an habitual Nazi, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner...

Interior, cell: Fletch takes the impressionable moron "Godper" Collett under his wing to show him the ropes of far-right idiocy. But before he can pass on a nugget of wisdom whilst pinning up another "English Rose" (Denise, just turned 16, stats 32,48,32) on the wall the no-nonsense screw Officer MacFulton intoduces their new cellmate. But oh no! it's blind, hook-handed "Blanco" Hamza. And the stage is set for a laugh-riot of "us and them" observation, and just maybe, some touching life lessons.

Don't miss next week, when Blanco doesn't realise he's playing draughts with an enormous nosed fraudster called Cohen, and Fletch has to do some quick thinking to save Godper from the prison Bull-queer "Grouty" and his plan to "toss his fresh salad" all over B-Wing.

Must try harder

"Zammo" MacGuire impersonator Peter Doherty has been arrested in east London on suspicion of possessing Class A drugs. Unlike Docherty however, Grange Hill's Zammo once recorded a song that people have heard of.

In yet another tragically embarassing gaffe Peter was held after stopping his car for police, who had been attempting to flag down a car behind him in Hackney. A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "Police indicated to a vehicle to stop and another vehicle also stopped in front." Police spoke to, but did not arrest, the driver of the first vehicle during Saturday's incident.

Seeing Mr Docherty's lack of the essential skills needed to be a disolute rock star is at first comical and then sad. If this incident proves anything it is that the last person to be convinced of his bad boy status is Peter himself.

You can't really imagine Keef diving for the kerb, putting his hands up at the first sign of a blue light in the mirror can you? No, because the mirror would be on his lap fighting for space with a blonde dressed as a Nazi fellating him.

Some people have just got it, and some people aint.

I wanna live like common people

Great news for spoilt sloanes and minor toffs struggling with the use of oposable thumbs, one-to-one "iPod survival" tutorials costing £65 for 40 minutes are to be offered at Selfridges department store in London.

Hordes of Henrietta's and Piers' will have to stop braying to each other at overpriced bars for an hour, to learn how to switch on their like rilly, rilly great iPod yah? Daddy got me one in each colour yah, I'm going to learn how to put both my albums on it, Dido and James Blunt, god he's so dishy.

Subjects covered will include using iTunes, installing videos, creating playlists and downloading podcasts. Kristina Rate of Selfridges said staff giving the one-to-one tutorials would be iPod enthusiasts. "Our guys basically know everything about it by really being interested. There isn't such a thing as an iPod school or an MP3 player course," she said. We never realised that Knightsbridge was such a haven for the autodidact.

Presumably when you've succesfully negotiated playing some Pussycat Dolls to a slack-cunted fox botherer they give you a rosette.

Don't rile a Canuck, ay?

Many years ago now, the humourist and cartoonist Willie Rushton wrote a small book called something like "How To Annoy Bureaucrats". One of his suggestions that stuck with me was when paying a bank charge or tax bill, overpay by a footling amount of pence. Thinking about the time, paperwork and expense incurred getting it sorted out will be enough to give you a warm glow on the coldest of winter evening.

A Canadian credit card holder is obviously familiar with the spirit of Mr Rushton's suggestion. Unhappy when his Canadian bank began out-sourcing some of its credit card processing to the US, Don Rogers lodged his protest via it's online payment system, jamming its computers by making dozens of tiny payments a day.

Rogers said he was worried that anti-terrorism laws in the United States could allow the US Government to access his data without his consent. "I don't want the CIA or George Bush to know how many cases of viagra I bought last week, or what church or charities I donate to," he told Reuters. Mr Rogers said his card has since been cancelled by Vancouver-based Citizens Bank, but he will continue paying his remaining balance of C$1,000 (£485) one little bit at a time.

Arthur Cockfield, a law professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario: "More and more our personal information is being rendered into digital formats and zips around the world," he said, adding that any credit card data sent to the United States is subject to US law.

Roger's initial attempt at paying in pennies produced a statement over 32 feet long, according to media reports.

Don is an example to us all. Positive action doesn't have to mean putting a litter bin through MacDonalds window, or whining like a sixth former about fascist police. It can be done with humour and elan. Please, please, please share any similar techniques for getting back at "The Man" in style. What the writers of The Chap would call "agitfop".

Dangermouse

The good folk at driverchris don't believe in fate, ghosts, astrology or frankly any of the superstitious claptrap that seems unaccountably popular. Karma doesn't exist in any sense other than the rather nice idea that if you spend your day with a kind word and a helping hand for everybody you meet hopefully they'll pass it on too. Perhaps the world would be a better place if the universe did run on a karmic basis. But surely that's a convoluted way of saying "think about the consequences of your actions, and don't act like a twat".

The Associated Press reports on Sunday, January 8, 2006:
FORT SUMNER, New Mexico. - A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.
Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.

Good. I hope the insurance firm stiff the old bastard. Hopefully it's technically arson too.

What plaything can you offer me?

In the quickly changing political landscape following the resignation of Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, many party members favour the immediate coronation of "Ming" Campbell. Ming, seen here with senior policy advisor "Lord Razzle" is expected to continue to pursue his policy of earthquakes, tidal waves and hurricanes, which proved so effective last year.

Ming may still face opposition from within Mongo, from the spokesperson for the "Bird-people" Lembit Öpik, who is believed to enjoy the support of the swamp-dwelling Earl of Mar and Kellie (LD).

Spokesmen from the government and Conservative opposition alike have derided Liberal Democrats as "cartoonish figures, with ridiculous comicbook names" a criticism voiced from both houses of Parliament by the likes of Dr Stephen Ladyman, Mr Andrew Slaughter, Mr Keith Vaz and Lord Adonis (Labour) Conservatives like Dr Fox and Michael Fabricant and even crossbenchers like Lord Hope of Thornes.

Celebrate the stupid

New Year's Eve 2005 was spent tinkering with a motorcycle, slack-jawed in complete amazement at Radio 2. Rounding up the events and music for the year were Dermot O'Leary, and presumably to make him seem like an intellectual collosus Davina McCall. It was compelling, like a horrific road smash that is appalling yet you can't help looking. Never have I heard such a relentless tide of inanity, a tag-team of stupid vapid idiocy. Davina would seemlessly range from her hatred of the tabloids and their evil ways to her delight at the latest celeb gossip picked over in detail in the red-tops.

And now that the Big Brother season is upon us once more I run the risk of flicking the channel and facing her. The crow-faced voice of HEAT magazine will be working the crowd of whooping enthusiasts in a cluster-fuck of self satisfied stupidity, given full blow by blow coverage on pages 2-17.

If you watch it, you are not being ironic or postmodern. You are contributing to the moronic tide. Sooner than you think the producers will put dog fights and rape onto the box, and ratings will soar. The revolution will be televised. Enjoy.

Deep down idiot

US President George W Bush has insisted that honourable policy and justice are alive and well in America. "Sometimes we don't see it that way on the surface, but I'm tellin' ya, deep down they're alive." Mr Bush, speaking on a visit to San Antonio, Texas, said that "whilst fair-play could easily get trapped underground in a poisonous atmosphere of liberal hand wringing" eventually it would be rescued by a combination of conservative Republican values and business thinking. "We're going to rescue truth and justice"

Truth and justice were last heard from on Wednesday evening, when the seam of lies, half-truths and obfuscation propping-up the current policies collapsed. Nothing has been heard from them recently and they are not expected to survive. An expert from a West Virginia mining firm commented "When you sink this deep it's hard to say how you get out easily."

I choo choo choose

In the absence of any ideology or principles, having bartered them for a shot in the big game, the current regime bows down to the idol of choice. Choice is good. Maggie taught us that choice equals lean, mean operators, shaving costs and passing them on to us the customer. Never mind that every customer who needs to work for a living is also an annoying cost in some other economic equation, there to be minimised or removed completely.

Many people in England are unaware they now have more choice over where they can get NHS treatment. As of 1 January, patients can choose between at least four hospitals or clinics for non-emergency treatment.
But a Mori poll of 1,276 over-40s found 80% knew little, if anything, about the changes.

We don't want a fucking choice. Save the money you sickening oleaginous turds and make the healthcare provision nearest to where I live as good as it can possibly be. How fucking empowering to be given the option to take my treatment in Aberdeen if I can afford to get there.

Wankers.